Physics-based games can also be very frustrating. The murkiness of how objects will behave once launched into the system can make games with complicated physics feel punishing and even a little unfair. Designers and programmers should take heed when they craft the physics engine that supports play. If the system is too realistic or too opaque, players can quickly grow frustrated.

The game Peggle is a cross between pachinko and a shooting game like Snood. In the game, designed by Sukhbir Sidhu and Brian Rothstein for PopCap, the player confronts a series of colored pegs. To pass the level, the player must clear all of the orange pegs by hitting them with a ball launched from a cannon at the top of the game area. Peggle has the potential to be very frustrating to players. The gameplay is centered almost entirely around a bouncing ball careening between pegs. The ball bounces off the first peg and then a second and then a third, changing course with each bounce. It’s almost impossible to tell where the ball will go beyond the second, or maybe the third, bounce, if the path is very clear. After the initial collision, the physics of the game take over and rattle the ball around among the pegs. The ensuing randomness stands as a pleasing counterpoint to the straight, legible flight of the player’s initial shot.

But Peggle avoids frustrating the player through a very clever and simple design decision. You can very clearly see where the ball will land on the first bounce. The game even gives you a dashed arrow indicating the trajectory of the ball, showing how it will fly and the arc that gravity will impose on it. The first power-up you earn even reveals the exact direction and arc of the ball after its first bounce. With this one piece of information, the designers wipe away the need to learn and internalize the physics of the system. Unlike Bow Man 2, you don’t need to intuit the trajectory of the ball. The game tells you. Handing over the key information about the physics of the system would seem to rob the player of the challenge of learning and mastering the system of physics in the game. But, in the case of Peggle, this turns out to be a good move. After the first bounce or two, the game devolves into randomness. Since the game requires clearing a number of pegs with a limited set of balls, obfuscating the trajectory of the ball would have only led to a lot of misses and frustration. Since the moments after the launch are largely random, having more transparency upfront gives you greater control and increases the legibility of the system. Showing the arc of the flight enables you to read, parse and understand the physics of the game before the output devolves into random noise. You get to make one clear and concise move that is followed by the variable output of a ball bouncing betwixt a series of pegs.

Peggle splits the difference between a physics game with a system of unclear, noisy outcomes and the clear and concise systems more typical of casual games. The game offers the player clear and concise choices about where to shoot. Once that move has been made, players can enjoy the unpredictable outcomes associated with physics games.

About the Author

Hannah from SheepArcade.
If you like to play games, visit sheep arcade and play fun games and much more free games.